The Anglo-Swedish drug maker AstraZeneca plc will deliver an additional 9 million vaccine doses to the European Union in the first quarter of 2021 despite the Chaos.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of European Commission announced on twitter that the AstraZeneca would start delivering the vaccine a week earlier than scheduled and expand its manufacturing.
AstraZeneca said it would provide one million vaccines, that brings to 40 million, only about half of what the European Union had expected from the company.
Due to slow rollout of national vaccination programs, the Bloc, said it would start restricting the export of vaccines if drug makers fail to meet delivery targets.
Von der Leyen said in an interview with the German broadcaster ZDF
“We want 70% of the grownup population to be vaccinated by the end of the summer.”
she also added that the supply of the vaccine should increase remarkably in the second quarter when Johnson & Johnson and other pharmaceutical companies overcome early hurdles.
Pascal Soriot, the Chief Executive Officer of AstraZenica said on January 29 that the company was trying to source more supplies from around the world to increase deliveries to the European Union.
She also added that the company was working 24/7 to increase this capacity.
The 27 governments of European Union has administered 2.6 doses of vaccine per 100 people which is quite low when compared with 12.5 doses in the United Kingdom and 8.8 in the United States.
The authorities of Germany are also under pressure to kick-start a vaccine program that was off to a slow start due to the short supply of Vaccine.
